Anthology
by SilverStarShine94
Summary: A selection of Sakura pairing drabbles in one place; prompts welcome! SakuxMulti
1. Suigetsu

**Anthology**

_A selection of Sakura pairings in one place; prompts welcome! SakuxMulti_

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Prompt: **Tied  
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Pairing: **Suigetsu x Sakura**

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As a shinobi of Konoha Sakura had a certain affinity for trees, forests, leaves... those kinds of things. It kind of came with the territory.

She did not feel the same way about this particular tree. Maybe that was just because of the fact that she was tied against it so tightly she could barely even move to make threatening hand gestures at the smirking man laying sprawled near her feet.

"Untie me now." Sakura spat, trying to look intimidating as possible while still trussed up like a turkey.

He cracked open one violet eye and smirked even wider,"Don't think so."

She let out a stream of verbal abuse mixed with a healthy dose of threats until the man - she didn't even know his name, not that it mattered - opened both eyes and muttered,"Shadup."

That only increased her ire.

"Jeez," he groaned finally, taking a slurp from the small bottle at his side. Sakura suddenly realised that the heat of the bright summer's day was making her very thirsty as well," you come through here - shrieking like a banshee - and interrupt my downtime" he paused to take another long slurp" and then you get mad at me for getting annoyed. Women."

"Where is Sasuke?" She hissed, staring him down.

"Beats me, pinkie." He closed his eyes, seemingly entirely nonchalant about the fact that she positively seething. Then, he said," Say: did you match your underwear to your hair? That's stupid."

Sakura almost exploded - literally. While turning a very fetching cherry-tomato shade of red.

"You think I looked stupid! You matched your top to your eyes, you weirdo!" She spluttered, pressing her thighs together tightly as much as she could with her legs tied.

The very sharp toothed smile that spread slowly across his face was deeply,deeply, unnerving.

"And my underwear too - wanna see?"

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So, this is intended to be a collection of multiSakura pairing oneshots/drabbles; please leave suggestions as to prompts and/or pairings because I could really use the inspiration!

Thanks for reading,

Silver ~


	2. Neji

**Anthology**

_A selection of Sakura pairings in one place; prompts welcome! SakuxMulti_

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Prompt: **Inebriated  
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Pairing: **Neji x Sakura**

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The yearly ANBU "hurray not all of us have died/been mutilated" party was beyond famous.

Or, perhaps, infamous.

Infamous for the awful, bizarre couples formed and destroyed in those blazing hours (Anko and Gai in the storage cupboard, anyone? ), infamous for the amount of damage caused to the surrounding area ('The Blind Shinobi' used to have _three_ floors, you know), but mostly infamous for the mind-boggling gallons of hard liquor consumed and the fact that no one had, as of yet, squirted out a kidney or two. A minor miracle, considering.

Hyuuga are well-known rule-book aficionado, sticklers for tradition.

And from the slow, careful, measured way the esteemed Taichou Hyuuga Neji handled the delicate, hand painted, clay cup, sipping sparsely at the warm liquid within; he made it clear through his exaggerated restraint that he was absolutely pissed. Following the party tradition to the letter as any good Hyuuga shinobi would. Haruno Sakura, second year ANBU medic, smiled, amused and more than a little tipsy herself, into her own cup.

If he caught so much of a hint of the fact that she was laughing at him, then she knew her face would very quickly become acquainted with the tatami mats on the floor. Because, you must understand, the very esteemed, very tight-laced Taichou Hyuuga Neji just so happened to be an implusive drunk; a reckless, feckless, rear-grabbing, table-smashing, tongue-lashing, whirlwind of mischief.

"Why, pray tell, are you smiling, Haruno-san?"

She saw the pronounced veins around his eyes, and knew he was using the byakugan to see through the cup to her face. Her smile faded as she mentally prepared to withstand any drunken not-at-all-gentle fist he might throw at her. She also tried to control her excitement at that thought.

"I didn't say that you could stop."

"And I didn't realise that your authority extended to being able to order my facial expression, Neji-taichou,"she leered at him from across the table.

"It does, and," he raised a slim, pale finger, "it extends to where you sit and I hereby order you to come and sit on the bench beside me."

Sakura half-inhaled the rest of her sake."Of course, leader, I am nothing but obedient to your whims."

He snorted, and the sound made her start a little though it was barely audible above the clamour. Standing made the world spin a little faster and Sakura realised that she was more drunk than she had thought. The bright lanterns dangling above them were like greasy smears of colour on the ceiling. Tsunade would have been ashamed.

Looking down at Neji as she moved around the table, squeezing between two men in deep conversation, was strange; it was odd to be so high above him when he usually towered over her, and she quite liked it.

"Neji -" she began

"Taichou", he corrected.

"Oh, do you like that?" She squinted at him as she tried to restrain a smirk breaking free, and felt his hard, long thigh press against her own as she squeezed into the scant space on the bench beside him.

His strange, silvery eyes looked sideways at her as he took a drink: measuring her, always pushing, always testing – on missions and out, "Certain parts of me like it more than others."

His bindings and headband had slipped so that a tiny sliver of the green of his seal was visible. Bright and vivid as a blade of grass stuck to his skin. Her fingers itched to touch it, but she had no idea how he would take that. She had never seen the full thing. She elbowed him gently in the ribs, mindful of the fact that he let her, to distract him from the fact that she was blushing furiously.

They chatted happily for another hour or so about missions, and their teammates, and the latest trend in slightly curved kunai that Neji absolutely despised. Eventually, it just got too hot and noisy inside so they slipped out into the small garden - mindful of the many couples dotted around in the bushes. They crept past into the 'restricted' section where the establishment grew their famous plums; used to brew one hell of a plum sake. Sakura reached up to snag one of the ripe fruits on the way past, the act making her feel far more rebellious than it should.

She took a large, sweet mouthful, giggling as she had to wipe the juices off her chin, and passed it to Neji. Her stomach gave a strange flutter as she watched him take a deliberate bite out of the same section she had just bitten. They stood for a while, in companionable silence, and passed the fruit between them until only the stone in the centre was left.

"Bet you can't get it through that window," Sakura said, childishly, pointing at the upper story where Naruto's golden head was just visible.

Neji's pale eyes narrowed in challenge, before he took careful aim and lobbed it with deadly accuracy. Sakura bent double, clutching at her stomach and trying to be silent as Naruto's shrieking curses echoed across the garden. Predictably, he blamed Sasuke, then Sai. Sakura laughed silently for what felt like eon, the flush of liquor making everything seem far more hilarious, before drawing up to her full height.

Neji was a lot closer than she remembered him being, and was watching her intently. In the dim light, the edge of his cursed seal seemed to glow a little. She couldn't resist, then, and reached her hand up to stroke her thumb across the surprisingly delicate skin.

"I am still of the lower house." He didn't sound angry like he usually did, instead there was something below the edge of resentment that crackled with electricity.

"You'll always be taichou to me – lower house or no."

"The lower house was made to serve," he continued as though she hadn't spoken.

He knelt in a single, fluid movement between her legs, yanking her onto the grass before she could so much aim a kick at his head, and shoving her legs apart with his broad shoulders. Sakura felt as though she was going to faint. She thrust her hands into his long hair - less smooth than she might have expected - and tilted his face up to hers. He gave her the cool smirk she hadn't seen since he had brutally beaten up Hinata in the chuunin exams and hooked her knees over his shoulders.

"I hope you don't serve all the upper house members like this," she teased, only to hide her own fluttery anxiety.

He let out a short bark of a laugh and quickly made her regret those words. When she had not even recovered, he lifted her Judas of a body and carried her swiftly into one of the unoccupied back rooms. One she really hoped hadn't been the famed Gai-Anko room.

She didn't know what to make of the power balance between them, but she was right; one smart remark and he did make a hasty acquaintance between her face and the tatami mat…

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As before; please leave suggestions as to prompts and/or pairings because I could really use the inspiration!

Thanks for reading,

Silver ~


	3. Madara

**Anthology**

_A selection of Sakura pairings in one place; prompts welcome! SakuxMulti_

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Prompt: **sadistic, manipulative, cruel**

Pairing: **Madara x Sakura**

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Sakura had a lot of things to regret about her younger genin days, but reading one of her mother's terrible, smutty old romance books - set back in the time of Konoha's founding - in a fit of hormonal curiosity was not the one she thought she would regret the most.

The Universe, and most especially the Uchiha in it, just loved to prove her wrong it seemed.

Standing, slightly open-mouthed, she stared up at Hokage mountain - normally a familiar sight; so mundane and usual that she wouldn't normally even spare it a thought. Normally. This was not normal. The sun climbed steadily higher into the sky as she stared - pinching herself and muttering 'kai' intermittently. The mountain did not move.

Sakura couldn't bring herself to move either.

Eventually, she turned and walked away from it. She tried not to think. The forest she jumped through was familiar, at least. The mountain disappeared between the leaves and for a while Sakura was as calm as an undisturbed pool. She tried not to think. This was one of Naruto's better pranks, perhaps; he was improving every day.

A dark war fan propped up against one of the trunks made her pause. It was decorated with three red tomoe that were like splatters of blood. Panic rose like a tidal wave, suffocating all of her thoughts for several long moments. She came back to herself panting as though she really had been submerged beneath water. A slight rustle above her made her neck jerk, she looked up so quickly. No one had been there before.

He stretched out on the branch like a huge, dark feline, though that couldn't have been comfortable.

"I liked this memory of yours," he smiled in a way that didn't reach his dark eyes,"very diverting."

"Who are you?" Of course, she knew who he was. Everyone knew who _he_ was.

"You know who I am."

There was a long pause during which he slowly slipped his hand into his sleeve and drew out a short knife. Sakura tensed, waiting, but he proceeded instead to pick beneath his nails with it - a habit she always berated Naruto for when she saw him do it.

"Shall we take the scene in chapter nine from the top? I thought that it was your favourite. You certainly... liked to _linger_ over, it didn't you. All alone, in the house, in the bathroom, with that charming picture of my young relative. Hm?"

It was as easy as breathing to punch him, and destroy the entire surrounding area in a single blow. She jumped high, more exhilarated the frightened now, and landed carefully.

The ground she had shattered began to slide back together like a film being played backwards. The dust sunk back into the rising earth and the grass smoothed back over the top like a wound being healed. The shattered tree reformed. She watched as the slight abrasion on her knuckles faded. The tenseness of her muscles dissipated against her will - as though her entire body was soft, pliable dough beneath a rolling-pin. He observed all this, coldly amused, from just on the edge of her peripheral vision, apparently unharmed.

She couldn't move as he ran the smooth edge of the fan down the length of her spine, pausing at her rear.

"Senju Kunoicha has just arrived at the secret meeting place at Hokage mountain to see her soon-to-be-lover, the deadly handsome Uchiha Shinoba, and they regard each other lustfully, don't they, Sakura-chan? The two rival families just," the fan slipped lower,"can't keep them apart. They _have_ to be together."

He presses the fan lower still and she would have had to stifle a gasp if she could make any sound at all. She can't even blink. "Kunoicha has always had a thing for the Uchiha; the way he fights so liquidly, so sinuous in his movements... And he thinks she is a beauty greater that even that of the sun: uncovered flesh as lovely and pale as the moon hanging in the night sky,"an invisible hand cups her intimately, and she wants to cry almost as much as she wants to tear her way through his ribcage.

"Mm, I loved that description. It drifts off the lips like the dream I'm quite sure you wish this was." The invisible hand grips her harder,"this isn't a dream."

Sakura stops listening him and stops thinking about the way more hands seem to be touching her. She focuses on the blunt sharpness of her teeth and the soft flesh of her lower lip - delicate as the skin of a ripe peach. This is the last gasp resort against genjutsu. Bite your lip, she thinks. Bite it.

Bite your lip.

_Bite your lip._

Blood spills hot down her chin, and blackness swamps over everything.

She comes back to herself standing, slightly open mouthed, staring at Hokage mountain. Hokage mountain with_ only_ the face of the First Hokage carved in sharp relief - the rest of the rock blank and mocking. The sun high, bright and cheerful in the chalk-bright sky. From behind her a baritone voice rumbled across the landscape:

"Chapter nine, yes? Let's take it from the top."

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As before; please leave suggestions as to prompts and/or pairings because I could really use the inspiration!

Thanks for reading,

Silver ~


	4. Sasori

**Anthology**

_A selection of Sakura pairings in one place; prompts welcome! SakuxMulti_

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Prompt: ** see you on the other side, dollshop**

Pairing: **Sasori x Sakura**

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It hadn't occurred to her what would happen if she lost the fight with Sasori; Tsunade had never allowed her to think of losing, only of winning. Slightly ironic considering that she was the most infamously terrible gambler in all of the ninja nations, but Sakura could hardly bring herself to find the humour in that now.

Not when she was staring down at what had been her body from the very handy vantage point of a shelf.

For the first, few terrible hours she had fought in vain to blink, to breathe, to sweat and cry in horror. The terrible disorientation was so great that she felt like she was constantly on the edge of vomiting, and unable to breath; although it was quickly apparent that she could do neither of those things. It was like everything had been smothered in cotton wool; she could still see, and hear, but smell, touch and taste eluded her. It was like the world was strangely colourless, though her vision was more perfect than it had ever been.

And her chakra was gone. That stung almost more acutely than the loss of her limbs.

"I don't like it up here," she said, although she had no vocal cord, or even _tongue_, so how -

"Quit your whining," was the abrupt reply, as Sasori screwed another strange-looking bolt into her elbow.

She almost expected to feel it, and was disappointed - yes, _disappointed_ - not to feel the jab of metal in her tender flesh. This couldn't be a dream because even in her dizziest nightmares Sakura just couldn't make this shit up. She rolled her eyes and was gratified that they responded - without the use of optic nerves, or muscles, or... Come to think of it, how could she even come to think without a brain.

She was currently a head. Not even a real head; a block of wood shaped like a head. All those times she had told Naruto a log had more brains than him were clearly coming back to bite her in the ass.

"Attach my head to something so that I can hit you," she ground out; anger and humour better than the scrabbling, clawing fear that had consumed her previously.

This time Sasori actually put down his tools to raise a hand to his head - as though he could actually get a headache from her words. Which, they both knew, he damn well couldn't. He pushed those pale, disgustingly life-like fingers though his luxurious red hair and glared up at her with baleful brown eyes. Sakura hoped, with that cowed, forever twelve year old section of her brain, that he would give her equally nice hair.

Not only was she a dismembered head, she was also a _bald _dismembered head.

"I'm not even sure why I left your personality intact," he drawled. She wondered how he preserved a person's exact voice tone.

"Killing me would have been more merciful," Sakura retorted, green - she hoped they were green - eyes narrowed.

"I _did_ kill you, brat. Or did you forget? I killed you the way I did hundreds before you, the way I killed Chiyo-baa-sama." He seemed pleased now, a smug smile present on that pale face. How did he get expressions without muscles? Now that she was like him, Sakura found she cared a whole lot more.

She didn't reply for long enough that he went back to her arm - delicately screwing each ball-joint in place for her fingers. On a bench at the other side of the oblong room, Sakura could see her clothes - freshly cleaned and spread out. At least he wasn't going to dress her in something horrendous. Her traumatised thoughts had clearly regressed back to that of her twelve year old self - nothing but clothes and hair.

Sakura wondered if she should just roll herself off of the shelf when she found herself seriously considering asking him to paint her new nails green.

"Maybe you're lonely,"she said, finally.

He snorted, and puffed an errant strand of hair out of his face. "I've been looking for someone to test the personality preservation on for some time. You have too much personality; all shrieking and emotions; so I thought it would be easiest to start with you, before trying someone more subtle and nuanced."

Since he had effectively dismissed her entire person, Sakura found herself free to ask her most burning question.

"Will you paint my nails green?"

He continued screwing her left thumb in place as though she hadn't spoken.

"The bottle of nail polish is in my thigh pouch."

He popped her wrist in place, and swung a large magnifying glass over the hand to inspect it more closely.

"It's the special stuff that dries in under a minute," Sakura found herself raising her voice,"and it's not like you can smell it anyway."

This, it seemed, was deemed worthy of a reply. Anything that questioned his craft was worthy of a reply. "I can smell, touch, see and hear, but not taste. Taste is not required as I no longer have to eat."

He swung the magnifying glass back into its holder, and drew out a larger one; tilting her new hand back and forth and occasionally making tiny adjustments that seemed to make no difference to her. Sakura knew, as soon as the words escaped her strange new mouth, that they sounded far weaker and needy than she had ever wanted to sound again,"Will I be able to?"

"If you behave." He almost sounded like a put-upon parent, and that thought was simultaneously amusing and horrifying.

"Oh, _please_, Daddy-sama," she cooed, mocking dripping off of every syllable.

She immediately grasped onto the way he paused, completely still for a fraction of a second. Sakura lived in a male-dominated environment and had quickly learned that sometimes, just sometimes, things could be gotten without brutally breaking every bone of those standing in her way. This seemed like one of these situations.

"My nails..." she trailed off, hating how she sounded, but hanging onto the tiny thread of power that had been tossed her way for dear life (or, perhaps, undeath).

Sakura had to conceal a face-splitting grin when the infamous Akasuna no Sasori stalked over to retrieve her pea-green nail polish and begin to painstakingly paint it onto her dis-embodied nails.

"Two coats, please" she prompted, ignoring how his eyes turned wrathfully up to stare at her.

Then, Kami be merciful, he actually did it.

"Oh, thank you, _danna_," she giggled, remembering in a fierce instant what the blond haired one had called him.

"Shut up, you air-headed brat. I clearly spoil you too much."

His voice had all of the venom of the scorpion he was named for, but she sensed a different note beneath it. Fluttering her eyelashes as best she could - not very well at all - she put on the rusty, hardly used girlish voice that she used to reserve just for Sasuke,"It's a bit scary up on this shelf."

He made a strange, clicking noise with his tongue, but reached up to grasp her head more delicately that she might have expected. The frown he directed at her could have withered flowers in full bloom, but Sakura didn't buy it for an instant. She ignored the disorientation from her head moving on its own with difficulty and looked up at him as coyly as she could manage. Ino's flirting tips were a bit unpractised, but she thought she was doing alright for a bald, unattached head.

"I'd like to be closer to you while you work," she said," it's fascinating."

I'd like to be closer to my body so I can try and wiggle my head onto my neck and beat the shit out of you; it'll be fascinating mercilessly punching you when my fists can't get sore - she meant.

She had to admit, though; he'd done a great job on her nails.

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As before; please leave suggestions as to prompts and/or pairings because I could really use the inspiration!

Thanks for reading,

Silver ~


	5. Hidan

**Anthology**

_A selection of Sakura pairings in one place; prompts welcome! SakuxMulti_

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Prompt:** Naked**

Pairing: **hidan x sakura**

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"Are you...?"

Her eyes flickered down, disbelieving.

Her foot dipped briefly into the lake they were fighting on; so great was her lapse in concentration.

Half-erect, at the very least. She was fighting a naked, zombie man with at least a partial erection - this was like one of those terrible B-movie porno-horrors the particularly awful hotels played late at night. You know the type; the ones with obligatory suspicious stain on the sheets and flickering fluorescent lights.

Her kunai sunk into Hidan's flesh like a hot knife slicing through butter... which was good, satisfying even, until he let out a soft - almost breathy - groan and shuddered minutely in a way that could only denote pleasure.

"Yeah, pinkie... Just fuckin' like that."

She let out a tiny, minuscule, shriek at that and let go of the kunai - heedless of her disregard of professionalism. He turned slowly to look at her with a wild, wide grin like a smear of an expression, and a bright glint in those weird inverted eyes. Sakura was sure that he had turned slower on purpose for effect, and she was also sure that any insult she might throw at him would have the opposite effect than she intended it to.

For a moment they stood there, on the water, regarding each other. Then his hand moved lightning fast and she half-expected a flash of pain that never came. Instead a warm, metallic splatter lanced across her face. From the way his grin grew even wider, if that was possible, she could tell he enjoyed seeing her marked with his blood more than anyone should.

"If you come any bloody closer, I'll fucking castrate you!" Sakura yelled, more expletives slipping into her speech the longer she spent with him.

And, if she wasn't mistaken, he hardened a little more until her repulsed gaze. She just wasn't equipped to deal with this. She wished Kakashi, or Naruto, would finish their fight and come back. Hell, she'd even take the creepy Orochimaru flavoured Kabuto over this maniac.

He leapt into the air to avoid her barrage of weapons, scythe raised like the tail of some massive scorpion, but all she could focus on was that certain... part of his anatomy. Much redder now, and curving obscenely towards his pale pectorals, and was it really as big as it seemed?... I mean, she was a medic and had seen a fair amount of manhoods in her time, but... And didn't it hurt to jump like that... And...

Sometimes Sakura wished she didn't have one of the quickest minds of her generation; capable of mulling over the exact details of her enemy's penis while aiming punches at his pointed, pretty face.

She managed to land a satisfying one - the crack of his neck must have echoed for at least a mile over the water - but his body just kept on moving regardless of the fact that his head was facing a different direction. One wide shoulder slammed into the soft flesh of her midsection and angled her towards the water. She opted to keep her chakra control in focus and landed hard on the surface of the water.

Hidan followed her down, body pressed into hers as she glared ferociously at the slick surface of his platinum hair. Somehow he had managed to angle it so that his hand caught both of her wrists and his knees were on either side of her. Which, of course, meant Sakura was much closer to the particular organ she had been unable to take her eyes off of the entire fight. If enemies were this distracted by nudity, Sakura decided she might just try fighting au natural herself.

Then it _twitched _slightly against the fabric of her skirt, and his cold hand tightened at her wrists. Just as she was about to break his hold and kick him into the stratosphere, he twisted his head back into place with the hand not currently pinning her down.

"Didn't fucking notice the chakra inhibitor, did you? You stupid little bitch." He laughed, and the sound was slightly distorted by what must have been his twisted windpipe.

Without thinking she arched her back and bit at the first section of his arm her teeth managed to come into contact with; spitting the mingled blood and saliva over his pale face in a bid to distract him. He blinked sharply, those hideous eyes, like pearls floating in ink, thankfully hidden for a moment before he actually thrust his pelvis sharply against her own - pressing all of his lithe muscles along her own small form for an instant.

"Again!" Hidan's grin stretched wide and white and delighted, in contrast to the crumpled disgust of her own features.

Honestly, Sakura had never been happier to hear Naruto bellow and crash across a battlefield as she was in that moment.

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Hope you all enjoyed this entire chapter about penis. When anon asked for naked fighting Hidan, I'm not sure what you all expected me to produce. I can't write serious, nude fighting. Well... I probably can, actually, but generally I will choose not to. The rating's going to have to go up because of this penis chapter as well, probably - hope you're all happy. :P

As before; please leave suggestions as to prompts and/or pairings because I could really use the inspiration!

Thanks for reading,

Silver ~

EDIT; Hidan seems to be naked in one of the very recent (?) anime episodes. I've only seen some gifs of it, so I kind of went with it. I have a vague grasp of what is happening in the most recent manga/etc. Vague as hell; just how I like it.


	6. Gaara

**Anthology**

_A selection of Sakura pairings in one place; prompts welcome! SakuxMulti_

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Prompt: **Tickle, sand dune/oasis, Jealousy**

Pairing: **Gaara x Sakura**

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Sakura hated the desert.

She hated the sand between her toes, the dry gritty feeling on her skin, the harsh, merciless rays of the sun, the smell, the taste, the _everything_.

Hated it.

But, she also hated not being able to pay the rent on time and being forced to wheedle her withered old landlady into not throwing her out on the streets every time her pay checks were a bit grim. Even the thought of the crumpled line of her mouth - wrinkled like a dried apricot - twisting and those cool eyes mocking were enough to make her blood temperature rise another few, seemingly impossible degrees.

Sakura hated most of all not being able to be self-sufficient.

So, she took the solo mission to Suna, with its fat, oozing, glorious pay check and its hideous, hated desert. It was a roughly a week long mission and she was only a few days into the travel to Suna - a messenger mission, carrying a scroll that was simultaneously too valuable to be sent by hawk, and not valuable enough to merit a whole team taking it. Tsunade had definitely given her it because she felt Sakura needed a break. And maybe she'd had a little too much sake.

A middle-level messenger mission this well-paid, even if it entailed going to the boiling, burning dune filled hell, was considered cushy - a gift of a mission, a casual gentle stroll through -

Was that sand moving more than the non-existent wind could account for? Sakura took a deliberate stomp of a step to dislodge the grains she felt just above her boots. A sliver of grains seemed to slide around the sensitive backs of her knees and Sakura felt herself shake a little. She was, to her eternal shame and Naruto's amusement, fiendishly ticklish.

Letting out a half-shriek, half roar, she jerked her leg so hard it felt like her knee was going to dislocate. Pawing at the tendrils that seemed to gather, separating and reforming between her clawing fingers. She trembled intermittently as it rasped along the sensitive skin - making tiny, muted noises rush from her lips. She was abruptly aware of a presence in the peripheral of her vision and whipped around to see a familiar, red-haired figure.

She stared at the young Kazekage - attempting to force her furious grimace into a neutral expression. Diplomacy demanded she not attempt to pummel him into grains smaller than the ones currently harassing her.

"I wasn't sure if it was you, Sakura-san," Gaara said, making a tiny, almost unnoticeable movement with his shoulders that must have been a shrug. "The sand allowed me to confirm your chakra signal."

Her entire body convulsed in a full-body shudder that made it look like she was possessed by a demon just as he was when the sand slithered its way back down her legs to rejoin him. She was sure he had made it go extra slow just to distress her. That bastard.

"Well, I'm glad you've decided not to try and kill me." _This time._

His eyes narrowed until they were slivers of ice; glacial in contrast to the arid surroundings; as though he had heard her thoughts.

"Kazekage-sama..." Sakura said, feeling a sliver of cold trickle down her spine. She didn't quite phrase it as a question.

"There have been bandit attacks in the area," Gaara paused, nostrils flaring as though scenting blood," and they've gotten to the point that I've come to deal with them myself."

Sakura reflected on the fact that this was probably the most she had ever heard him speak. His voice had a low, scratchy quality, as though sand was permanently lodged in his throat. She was about to say that Konoha hadn't heard anything about these bandits, but if they hadn't entered their territory then it was unlikely news would have been passed on. It would be seen as a sign of weakness - and no shinobi country wanted that.

"I'll hurry on to Suna then." She gave a short, probably too sharp, bow and turned to leave.

Sand clasped around her wrist, halting her, and making her quiver as it brushed the delicate skin. "Naruto would be upset if you were hurt."

Her teeth ground together so hard Sakura was sure the desert echoed with the sound. "I'm not a genin any more, _Gaara_."

The sand forced her to turn and face him again, even though - had she really wanted to - she could have easily broken it with her enhanced strength. Had he not been Kazekage, she would have stomped him to the ground verbally - and possibly physically - and been on her merry way. The expression on her face would have been enough to make Naruto run a mile, but Gaara was as serene as an undisturbed pool.

"I am going back to Suna after I deal with this. You will accompany me."

The sand trailed away from her skin and she was one hundred percent sure that it was done extra slowly, and that he was silently amused by how she shook.

This was going to be a long mission.

...

"This is the nearest source of water for many miles around. We'll wait for them here."

Gaara hadn't spoken for many hours; his voice startled her a little. She squinted at the surrounding landscape and saw nothing but a sea of undulating dunes. Perhaps the heat had finally gotten to him.

"This oasis isn't on the map."

He snorted slightly."Surely Konoha do not map all of their secrets."

His voice was minutely teasing in a way that she wasn't sure how to handle. It was difficult to know how to deal with him full stop, really. He wasn't an enemy any more, but he wasn't her friend. He was her superior, but at the same time did not really act like it: he seemed to disdain whatever deference she half-heartedly tried to show him.

And then there was the way that his sand kept brushing against her. She knew she wasn't imagining it. Five minutes later and it happened again and she honestly couldn't stand it any more.

"_I'm ticklish okay! Isn't that fucking hilarious?!"_ Sakura bellowed, furious and more than a little mortified.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye; iris so pale it might not have been there at all.

"I thought you were disgusted."

For a second she saw part of the old Gaara; the monster, the child, the outcast. Her heart quivered a little.

"No, not disgusted," she sighed, and looked at him less furiously than before,"I'm just... _really_ ticklish and Naruto and Lee are always making fun of me for it, and getting me when I'm not looking."

At the mention of Lee a deep frown appeared on his face, eyes narrowing slightly. "Lee tickles you."

"Yes," Sakura hunched her shoulders up,"sometimes when we're training together. He's still a little faster than me."

The whole time they had been walking together, Gaara had kept a very respectable distance, but now he moved closer. Like a shark circling his pray. There was a long moment of heavy silence during which the fine hairs on Sakura's neck prickled in foreboding.

"Like this..?"

Suddenly, she was on the ground beneath the _esteemed_ Kazekage, writhing and gasping and trying very hard to give him a sound kicking. His teeth were bared in a way that would have made her faint several years before, but now they just made her want to wrestle him into submission. His slim, pale hands were sliding experimentally up her sensitive ribs, and palming her behind her knees.

She managed to aim a solid kick at his stomach, but the sand stopped her and being on her back removed any leverage she might have had. His touch was too firm at some places and too light at others - as though he had no idea how to handle her. It was the idea of Lee doing this that had set him off... could he possibly have been... Jealous?

The idea made her go slack with something that wasn't quite horror, and his eyes shot up to her face, concerned. Sakura used that moment to wrap her legs around his hip and flip them over. Sand went everywhere; in her hair, and in her eyes. Determined to get her payback, she slid her hands up his sides and under his armpits, wriggling between straps and layers of fabric

He lay docile beneath her, panting slightly, not even twitching.

It was madness that they could go from being barely speaking acquaintances, to this in so short a space of time. After a few moments it became clear that he wasn't ticklish _at all_ and all she was accomplishing was to mess up his clothes a bit. She saw a flash of pale, lean abdomen and her cheeks heated as she realised the position they were in.

Gaara took advantage of her distraction to roll her under him again and start tickling her with the single mindedness that seemed to accompany everything he did.

At that moment, they both felt the flash of other chakra signals entering the area. The bandits!

He jumped off her; dragging her to his feet. She crashed into his chest and then leapt back as though she had been burned. He grinned at her, unrepentant.

Sakura had no idea how they were going to go back to normal after this.

...

...

* * *

As before; please leave suggestions as to prompts and/or pairings because I could really use the inspiration!

Thanks for reading,

Silver ~


	7. Itachi

**Anthology**

_A selection of Sakura pairings in one place; prompts welcome! SakuxMulti_

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Prompt: **"coincidence", "molest, hair pulling, concubine", "really anything because they're perfect"**

Pairing:** Itachi x Sakura**

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Sakura gripped her wrist almost tightly enough to bruise where her hands were shoved into the voluminous folds of her jade-green Kimono. She dug her specially manicured nails into her skin in an attempt to wrest back control. Breathing deeply, she looked down at the patterns that slipped across the silk cloaking her skin; the white cranes, and the koi, and the delicate locus flowers.

Counting one hundred long beats of her heart, she found the strength to lift her head again.

In all the seedy meetings, in all the world, he had to come to this one. It was almost too cruel to be coincidence.

Uchiha Itachi looked perfectly at home sprawled among the velvet, tasselled cushions that littered the floor, taking a long drag from the dark pipe balanced in his fingers. She would never have imagined him sprawling in a thousand years; the casual slump of his spine, the loose, relaxed length of his arms and the spread of his strong thighs beneath the dark fabric of his own traditional garment.

The smoking was equally incongruous; the obvious pleasure he took in the long, sucking drags, the slow, sensuous exhales, the bittersweet smoke curling around him like a caress... She could almost have convinced herself that it was some other man had it not been for the unmistakeable, red eyes that pinned her to her seat more surely than kunai.

He recognised her in a second, of course, but there was nothing she could do now.

This was meant to be a simple mission; pretend to be a concubine, seduce target, murder target, make off with any important scrolls on target's rapidly cooling corpse. Those kinds of missions were as old as the hills, and nearly as abundant as them. They were practically considered bread and butter assignments for kunoichi; even medical, non-espionage types like Sakura.

They were in the _Tea Country_ for Kami's sake! What were Akatsuki doing in this backwater?

It was considered such a simple mission that she was without backup. Really, it was just to fulfil Sakura's time in the field for the month, as she had been stuck in the hospital helping with an Influenza outbreak. All active Shinobi had to spend a certain amount of time out of Konoha in order to remain sharp; even if they were with specialised units, such as Intelligence and Interrogation, or Medical, which were primarily based within the Village itself.

What could Uchiha Itachi be doing here? And, equally worrying; where was his partner, the ferocious Hoshigaki Kisame?

She wasn't going to get any answers staring into the glass of sake that she had just been handed, but she was at a loss at what to do. Give her a man bleeding out on the battlefield, and she would push his intestines back in with one hand and stitch him back up with the other. Give her an enemy squad charging at her, and she would crush each skull with a well-placed fist.

Give her Uchiha Itachi when she was supposed to be a seductive, undercover concubine and she honestly wanted to crawl under the table and chug hot sake straight from the bottle until he left.

So engrossed was she in her horror that Sakura didn't even realise he had moved until a hand lightly touched her shoulder. She aggressively whipped out a fan, glad that it had been the wooden handle that she had grasped, rather than the kunai she had been seeking. Flipping it open, Sakura blushed furiously and murmured to the startled man next to her that she was feeling a little warm.

Sakura could feel the cool amusement of Uchiha Itachi in his gaze without looking up and it made her burn furiously hot and cold.

"Are you occupied?" His words dropped through the air, foggy with incense, like stones.

Occupied was a loose term for; with a customer. She shook her head; unable to trust her quivering lips with words. The dimness of the room and the fluttering of her fan would hide the fluctuations in her expressions. He settled on the large cushion with her like a large feline; all slow and languid. For a long several minutes they didn't speak. She watched him take long drags of his pipe out of the corner of her eye; he was framed like a portrait by her thick, mascara coated eyelashes.

She all but forgot about the red-faced arms dealer that was her target.

When she finally turned to meet his gaze his expression was impassive. He blew a perfect smoke ring and Sakura was sure she had never hated anyone as much as she hated him in that instant. He extended the hand with the pipe towards her. She couldn't think of a polite way to refuse. Folding up her fan, she rested it lightly on her knee before taking the proffered pipe from him.

She had never smoked before, but it was - literally - as easy as breathing, surely? Her hands shook faintly as she lifted it to her mouth, concentrating on the smooth feel of the wood beneath her fingertips rather than his smothering presence beside her. All of the surrounding chatter and raucous laughter seemed to melt into the background.

It tasted bitter and tickled the back of her throat, but she was pleased that she didn't cough.

He regarded her before saying, flatly,"You have to inhale it properly. Let it fill your lungs."

His palm was hot and rough and sudden against her throat; she had thought he would be cold as ice. Fighting the urge to bite him, to headbutt him, to _anything_, Sakura lifted the pipe to her mouth again and tried to draw it properly in this time. No one bothered to pay them much attention; it was late and most were either horrendously drunk, with concubines of their own, or both.

"Inhale."

His hand slid lower until it settled on the silk just before the soft swell of her breasts, the other pressed below them on the hard plane of her ribs; her stomach muscles twitched sporadically beneath his touch.

"Hold it there." His expression was still curiously blank despite how close they were.

She did. Hypnotised into unwilling compliance by his glittering eyes; like a mouse in the thrall of a snake.

"Now, exhale."

She waited, feeling the rawness of the back of her throat, the foreign feeling of warmth in her lungs before pursing her lips and exhaling slowly. A satisfied sliver of an expression passed fleetingly across his face before he released her. She wondered if his strive for perfection was so constant that he felt the need to correct the sub-standard actions of all those around him.

"What did you think?"

"I feel like I've eaten ash," she responded, curtly. Terrified of the implications of his presence, and furious with his strange actions.

A tiny hint of a smirk quirked the corners of his mouth. On him it was as expressive as a full, blinding grin.

"Let's go to my room, I think." Itachi raised his voice enough that a few of the nearest men, _including her target, _looked over with indulgent, hideous leers full of shared masculine intent.

If she didn't go with him, then her cover would be blown sky high. She had no choice.

That bastard.

...

The corridor was dark and cool in comparison to the room they had just been in. She walked behind him until the laughter faded to the very edges of hearing; almost as though it was imagined. He stopped and turned abruptly; she drew the kunai she had intended to grab earlier and almost made it into fighting stance before her body was forced into the wall.

One hand twisted her wrist until she dropped her weapon, and the other dove into the elaborate bun Sakura had only just been able to manage with the short hair she had.

She spat at him.

Not respectable. Not shinobi-like. She didn't care.

His hand twisted in her hair almost hard enough to hurt; certainly enough to ensure that she couldn't move her head, but otherwise he didn't move. She watched her saliva roll slowly down his cheek and wondered if that was her last act. Not a bad way to go.

"I would not like to kill you, Sakura-san. Try to bear that in mind."

She would have laughed had he not crushed her to the wall so hard there was scarcely any breath in her lungs. He eased back enough for her to breathe, but kept the bruising hold on her wrist. His fingers tightened in her hair slightly until the scalp started to prickle as though she was being stabbed by thousands of tiny needles.

"You will go to your room and stay there until tomorrow morning - by which time my partner and I will be gone. If you try to stop us, or contact Konoha, I will have no choice but to kill you."

Sakura could hardly believe her ears. He had slaughtered his entire family, but was letting her go? Perhaps there was something in that pipe she had smoked, perhaps she was in the midst of one of his genjutsu.

"What the hell do you- " She started, baring her teeth.

He mouth pressed against hers with enough force to stop the words in her throat. She could barely taste the pipe-weed on him because her own mouth was already swimming in it. The faint sweetness of the sake he must have drank was beyond cloying. Her eyes remained open and furious; meeting his own half-open ones in a clash. The twist of his hands in her hair again sent a shocking jolt to her stomach that she only later realised was arousal.

It wasn't a sweet kiss. His hand trapped her arm behind her and there was no give in the body that pressed against her, despite how soft the mouth was. His gaze held her whole. Just before she started to thrash like a trapped animal and bite at him, a drunken man stumbled around the corner with his arm slung around a pretty, tittering lady at least a head taller than him.

She hated him for keeping her cover.

"Get a room," the drunkard laughed, slapping his own concubine's rear and making her squeal.

Itachi pulled away from her and made a noise of assent, before herding her through the nearest door. They regarded each other when the door closed. Sakura felt her skin prickling all over as though she had been shocked; startled by the coolness that assaulted her skin.

"Stay in here until morning," Itachi repeated, lips and cheek glistening from her saliva.

He left her and she stood for a while; scalp tingling ferociously, mouth laced with the taste of ash and head full of the image of how she had marked him.

She lay down with her Kimono still on.

...

A dull thud at her window woke her.

She lay very still except for the tensing of her muscles when she recognised his chakra signal; sure that he had changed his mind and come back to finish her off.

"Our target was in common," Itachi said, wiping a stray drip of blood from the cheek where she had previously spat at him. He must have seen the poisonous looks she had been shooting the man under the pretence of seduction.

He nodded to her in the slow, polite way used when passing an acquaintance on the street, but not having time to stop, before leaping out into the night. She supposed that was the sort of goodbye she could expect from him; distant and infuriating. Flopping back onto her pillows, Sakura buried her face into her hands.

One thing was for sure; there was a hell of a lot that was going to be omitted from her mission report.

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As before; please leave suggestions as to prompts and/or pairings because I could really use the inspiration!

Thanks for reading,

Silver ~


End file.
